=========================================================================== ----------------- MARVEL VS CAPCOM 2: NEW AGE OF HEROES ------------------- ------------------------- ICEMAN STRATEGY GUIDE --------------------------- =========================================================================== Iceman Strategy Guide Version 0.1 - Last Updated 5 May 2000 FAQ written by David da Rosa aka Beta (beta@nettaxi.com) FAQ (c) 2000 by Beta Productions Marvel Vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Spiderman, Ryu, Guile, Iceman, etc, are (c) to their respective owners. Please do not use any part of this guide without prior consent of the author. Any suggestions and contributions are welcome and credits will be given. ____________________ / Version History \_____________________________________________________ 0.1 - The first appearance of Iceman's FAQ, taking the basic layout from my other FAQs. Largely incomplete, only done up to Super moves section, as well as ripping the Tagging and part of UCT sections from my other FAQs. Expect an update soon! ____________________ / Credits \_____________________________________________________ Zhen, aka Da-Z (meditate70@hotmail.com) - He is a big help to all my FAQs (now only Spidey and Guile, but I would expect more help from him ^_^). Very seasoned player indeed, who has taught me the cheesy Air Combo finishing with a Jab Web Ball, as well as tactics on crossing up with Assists from Spidey and Iceman. Also, he seems to share with me the same view on the Ultimate Cheese Team, as he has got 54 straight wins with that team is his local arcade (wow). A big thanks to Zhen! CJayC of GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com) - For hosting my FAQs. Any updates of my FAQs can be found there. Al Amaloo of Video Game Strategies (vgstrategies.about.com) - Also for hosting my FAQs. Updates can also be found there. You - Well, if nobody reads my FAQs and sends me mail, I don't feel like writing any more, but I received some positive response from you guys, so I hope I can continue to write more useful FAQs! =========================================================================== ------------------------------ CONTENTS ----------------------------------- =========================================================================== Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 2 - Basic Attacks Chapter 3 - Special Moves Chapter 4 - Hyper Combos Chapter 5 - Assist Types Chapter 6 - Strategies Chapter 7 - Ultimate Cheese Team Chapter 8 - Vs Human Players Chapter 9 - Beating Abyss Appendix A - Notations Appendix B - Game Basics =========================================================================== ----------------------------- INTRODUCTION -------------------------------- =========================================================================== First of all, this guide is intended to teach players how to use Iceman, at least effectively, in Marvel Vs Capcom 2. That's why you will expect to find strategies in it rather than irrelevant information such as colours, win poses, quotes, etc. The basics of the game as well as the FAQ notations are located at the end of the FAQ (as most people just skip them, but there you are for the beginners). If you need more background information of the characters, win poses, etc, there are more good quality general FAQs at GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com). Iceman has a single purpose in this game: chipping your enemy to death. His close quarters games suck and he does not takes damage very well, so you should basically play a keep away game with him. He also takes no chipping damage from energy based attacks, so here you have another reason for playing keep away. However, he has a surprisingly fast walking and dashing speed, and his Air Combos does a lot of damage, so use them to add a variety to your game. =========================================================================== ----------------------------- BASIC ATTACKS ------------------------------- =========================================================================== Iceman's basic attacks are more or less useless. They don't have much priority and doesn't do too much damage, but nevertheless some of them are pretty fast, which can help you escape tight situations and go back to the keep away game. ____________________ / Standing Attacks \_____________________________________________________ Jab - The run-of-the-mill jab which doesn't have much use. Used perhaps for catching airborne enemies off-guard, but not that useful at all. Usefulness [**---] Short - This standing kick has quite a decent range and it is quick. Very useful to initiate a ground chain and as a poke. Usefulness [***--] Strong - Nothing unusual about this punch. Just a used in combos. Usefulness [**---] Forward - Exactly like strong in terms of usage. Usefulness [**---] Fierce - Used in combos, don't try to use it to poke, but you can chain a Icebeam or a Arctic Attack afterwards. Usefulness [**---] Roundhouse - Iceman kicks some sort of ice from his leg and has decent range, so use it to finish ground chains if your enemy is out of reach of other moves. Usefulness [**---] ____________________ / Crouching Attacks \_____________________________________________________ Jab - The crouching version of the S.Jab. What else will you want? Usefulness [**---] Short - This move hits low (obviously) and has some decent range, but I would still consider using the standing version to poke, which although does not hit low, has a better reach, but when already in close quarters, use this instead. Usefulness [**/--] Strong - Again, nothing exciting besides used in combos. Usefulness [**---] Forward - The move to follow the C.Short. It has more range but you risk pushing your enemy to far away for the C.Roundhouse to connect, so use it with discretion. Usefulness [**---] Fierce - Similar to the S.Roundhouse but Iceman uses its hand instead. Not much use I can figure out from this move. Usefulness [**---] Roundhouse - His launcher with little horizontal range but a lot of vertical range, but it only aims at a little area and it is not that useful against jump ins, as if your opponent is just above or past you, this move will whiff leaving him plenty of opportunities to punish you. More useful in combos and if it is blocked, cancel it into a Jab Icebeam. Usefulness [**/--] ____________________ / Jumping Attacks \_____________________________________________________ Jab - A diagonally down punch from the air. Useful as a starter for both Air Combos or multi-hit jump ins but not really recommended unless your enemy blocks seamlessly all your single hit jump ins. Usefulness [**---] Short - Similar in properties to Jumping Jab. Usefulness [**---] Strong - Used in air combos, not much to say. Usefulness [**---] Forward - Same as above... Usefulness [**---] Fierce - Iceman does a cut with a sword if ice connected to his hand. As far as I can see this seams to be his best jump in move but it is not really that good. Usefulness [**/--] D + Fierce - Iceman throws a ball of ice downwards, at about 60 degrees from his front. I don't think this is useful at all but you may just try it once for a while. Usefulness [*/---] Roundhouse - This move has crappy range for a Roundhouse so don't use it often as a jump in move. Really, I mean it. Usefulness [*/---] D + Roundhouse - Iceman does a sort of blade kick with his leg which became a blade sort of thing (of ice, of course). It has ok air to air properties but still not that useful. Usefulness [**---] ____________________ / Throws \_____________________________________________________ F or B + Fierce Iceman grabs his prey, charges him with ice energy and sends him to the far side of the screen. He will still be frozen, which leaves enough time for Iceman to connect with a Icebeam. Also useful to give yourself some space for breathing. If done when he is in the corner, you can actually set up a nice ground chain into an Air Combo finishing with Arctic Attack! Usefulness [****-] Any Direction except U or UB or UF + Roundhouse in the air Same as standing throw, but it is hard to connect anything afterwards, unless you are both near a corner and you land straight in front of him after you connect the throw. Usefulness [**---] =========================================================================== ----------------------------- SPECIAL MOVES ------------------------------- =========================================================================== Iceman has in his arsenal 3 different special moves, but quite honestly you will be using only one of them, as the other two are actually quite worthless. Therefore, try to get as much from his Icebeam as it is your main weapon for the entire match! ____________________ / Icebeam \_____________________________________________________ D, DF, F + Jab or Fierce (Can be done in air) Iceman's projectile definitely sits on the top ranks in MvC2. It is fast, it goes full screen and it is reliable. Comparing to other major chippers in the game, Icebeam might be a little slower than Optic Blast, but remember that Iceman takes no blocking damage, so who has the last laugh? Jab Icebeam is mainly used to chip damage as well as to end ground chains when you don't have a Super ready, and it does decent damage as well. The Fierce version is only useful in air, when people expect you to do the Jab one and they just dash into you, so they eat all of it. Vary your tactics though Usefulness [*****] for the Jab version [***--] for the Fierce version. ____________________ / Avalanche \_____________________________________________________ D, DF, F + Short or Roundhouse (Can be done in air) This move is really worthless. Iceman will summon a big ball of ice from apparently nowhere, which crashes into his foe. Short the ball comes in the middle of the screen while Roundhouse releases it at the far end of the screen. The bad thing is, this move, apart from the slow start up, will leave you in move stun long enough for a HITED opponent to recover and retaliate. However, it does have one single purpose. When your enemy is in the far end of the screen and you want to chip him to death, do the Roundhouse version of this move and immediately cancel it into the Arctic Attack, leaving your enemy with no opportunity to Super Jump over it to attack you from top, leaving them hopelessly to block your Super. Usefulness [*/---] ____________________ / Ice Fist \_____________________________________________________ D, DB, B + Jab or Fierce Iceman pauses momentary to fit some sort of ice ball in his right hand, causing his normal moves damage to increase by a bit. Sounds good, right? However, after doing the Ice Fist, your normal moves will push your enemy a bit more far away than usual, meaning that doing combos will become harder. And the only way to wear it off is to tag out and tag in again. Really, I don't recommend doing this Usefulness [*----] =========================================================================== ----------------------------- HYPER COMBOS -------------------------------- =========================================================================== You thought Iceman has little special moves, but even worse he has only 1 Super! However, it is a good one and you should make good use of it. ____________________ / Arctic Attack \_____________________________________________________ D, DF, F + Jab + Fierce (Can be done in air) Iceman stands still and launches lots of ice fragments in all directions. Great chipping move as well as being able to combo off from a Air Combo or a ground chain. Don't try to pull it off alone as good players can Super Jump over everything and punish you from behind. If you do it in the air and you miss it, you will slowly float back to the ground but you will not touch the ground, meaning you are immune to low attacks, but so what? Usefulness [***--] =========================================================================== ----------------------------- ASSIST TYPES -------------------------------- =========================================================================== ____________________ / Alpha \_____________________________________________________ ____________________ / Beta \_____________________________________________________ ____________________ / Gamma \_____________________________________________________ =========================================================================== ------------------------------- STRATEGY ---------------------------------- =========================================================================== ____________________ / Combo Theory \_____________________________________________________ ____________________ / Ground Game \_____________________________________________________ ____________________ / Air to Air \_____________________________________________________ ____________________ / Defence \_____________________________________________________ ____________________ / Tagging Out \_____________________________________________________ Changing characters. People tend to change characters when the playing one is nearly dying. In this case, do not continue and rush in in any attempt to pressure him to death, because he can simply switch out when you dash in, hitting you, leading to a possible juggle afterwards. So what do you do? Slow down, wait and crouch down and wait for your opponent, because the slightest move will make him change the character. If he sits there without doing anything and waiting for your dash, than simply walk in and throw (now you understand the importance of throws, right?). As soon as you keep calm, he will make a mistake and change character, which is free for you to combo. So how do you change? There are 5 safer ways to change. 1 - The safest way is to do a counter by inputting B, DB, D + Assist 1 or 2 (depending on the character you want to change). It wastes one Super bar but you can hit your enemy and safely change. 2 - Do a safe Delayed Super Combo (one that pushes your enemy away without too much recovery time). Not really recommended, but it is still quite safe, and does some chipping damage. 3 - Launch and change. Your other character will jump in and kick the launched enemy, but you wasted an air combo and it is quite difficult to do. Not really recommended. 4 - Let him walk to you and when he is very near, change. Your character will usually land on the other side and unless he has a far reach super, you are pretty much safe. 5 - When he does a super jump, you change. Nuff said. Also, when you change any other character into Spiderman and it hits, sending your enemy high in the skies, just walk your Spiderman near the enemy landing side and do a S.Roundhouse to kick him up for an Air Combo before he can roll. Talking about roll, try to roll every time you get knocked down, which avoids OTG combos and you can nail them back from behind. To roll, when knocked down, immediately do B, DB, F + any punch. There seems to be no difference between Jab and Fierce. Oh yeah, by the way, if you see that one of your opponent helpers as got a big chunk of red bar unrecovered, do the D, DF, F + Assist to force that character out and he has can no longer recover the red bar. That's pretty much the general strategies I can give you for using Spidey. Just remember, although many of my tactics involve throws, they can be escaped and besides, always throwing is very cheap. Don't over abuse it unless really necessary. Use an helper instead and you look more fair. Also don't taunt your enemy just because you are winning, only do so if he is playing like a scrub or being a turtle. You want to play for fun, don't you? =========================================================================== ------------------------- ULTIMATE CHEESE TEAM ---------------------------- =========================================================================== Why is it called the ultimate cheese team? Because using this team guarantees me a 90% winning percentage in my arcade (I usually lose because I am too tired of matches). This team consists of Spidey, Guile and Iceman. Now let me explain why this is cheese. All three characters should use the Alpha assist type. Spidey goes first, than Guile and finally Iceman. The reason behind is that Spidey is a character which deals a lot of damage without the need of supers, which is suitable for the first part of the match. As well as it, he does a lot of chain combos which even blocked fills the super bar like no tomorrow. Guile is good for the middle of the match, as he does a fair amount of damage with supers (all of which are comboable). Finally, as Iceman does not take block damage from most energy type moves, and his Icebeam chips block damage like crazy, it is extremely useful in the endgame, when the time bar is running out, as he is the king of keep away ^_^. Besides if you can dish out an air combo with him, it does heck a lot of damage as well. (more on this on next update) With this setup you can win most matches with ONLY Spidey as the active player. But when he gets damaged a lot or dies, Guile fights decently and can easily take the lead when Spidey is in trouble. Save Iceman for the endgame, where you chip your enemy to death or wait for the counter to reach 0. However, Zhen has a slightly point of view with this team and here I quote his tactics: "How interesting, Spidey, Iceman, and Guile happen to be the team I got 52 wins the other day (then the place closed), however, I prefer to use iceman before Guile for a lots reasons, first of all the weakest part of Iceman is his close game and the fact that he doesn't have an anti air except for the launcher which can hit the wrong way most times and get your self jacked, when u play keep away with Iceman, you should always have a anti air assist keep them on their toes, and once in a while jump in and do the cross over web ball... also even if you do get caught due to your over abuse of Iceman, you can always switch to 3rd char.. I prefer to do alpha counter switch 70% of the times, and 30% of the times I switch with super cancelling... due to the fact that each char have a different assist, it's always better to have more options on your assists, therefore I strongly suggest that you keep every char alive till they all have a sliver of life left since a full bar isn't really that much in this game because of all the crazy super cancelling you can do and the massive damage on air combos... also since guile is strong, it's a good char to make a come back with or keep your lead, if it ever gets to that point.. besides, most of his damaging combo or punishes requires supers, while iceman can live off chipping." Wow, well, he has his reasons so judge your actions accordingly. If you need more information on using Spidey or Guile, look no further at the guides written by the same author (that's me, of course ^_^). =========================================================================== ----------------------------- BEATING ABYSS ------------------------------- =========================================================================== ____________________ / First Form \_____________________________________________________ ____________________ / Second Form \_____________________________________________________ ____________________ / Final Form \_____________________________________________________ =========================================================================== --------------------------- VS HUMAN PLAYERS ------------------------------ =========================================================================== =========================================================================== ------------------------------- NOTATIONS --------------------------------- =========================================================================== The following notations are assuming that the player is facing right: UB U UF __ Jab Fierce Assist 1 / \ ( ) ( ) ( ) B \__/ F || Short Roundhouse Assist 2 || ( ) ( ) ( ) DB D DF Due to the new buttons configuration, in order to get Strong you have to tap Jab twice and to get Forward you have to tap Short twice. In order words, Strong and Forward are only used in combos. S. - Standing C. - Crouching J. - Jumping * -> * - Do one thing after another *, * - Do one thing quickly after another * + * - Press both buttons together * or * - Press either button Usefulness Chart: * means 1 grade and / means half a grade. [*----] - This move is useless. Avoid. [**---] - An OK move. You will have to use it in combos anyway. [***--] - A decent move. Should be used a bit more often. [****-] - An useful move. Use it whenever situation allows. [*****] - This move rocks! Use it and abuse it, but don't get predictable. =========================================================================== ------------------------------ GAME BASICS -------------------------------- =========================================================================== Dash - F, F or Jab + Fierce Back Dash - B, B or B + Jab + Fierce Super Jump - D, U or Short + Roundhouse or U after a launcher Push Block - Jab + Fierce while blocking Tag Out - Jab + Short for first character or Short + Forward for second Taunt - Start (or Start + Short in DC) Tech Hit - F or B + any button when being throw Air Combo - Launch your enemy and tap U, than follow with a combo. OTG Combo - Off The Ground Combo. When your enemy is down to the ground, hit him with a low attack to kick him up and continue to combo. Only 1 OTG allowed per combo. Snap Back - D, DF, F + Assist 1 or 2, depending on who you want to force out. Uses one level of Super. Counter - B, DB, D + Assist 1 or 2. The chosen character will jump out and do his assist and you will change characters. Uses one level of Super. Dual/Triple Super - Assist 1 + Assist 2. What comes out depends on the number of characters left and amount of Supers available. Delayed Hyper Combo - Input the Super motion of the following character when the playing character is doing a Super. Repeat as often as Super meter allows. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's about all I have to say about Guile now. Fell free to send me your comments, suggestions, etc to beta@nettaxi.com. If you want to use any information found in this FAQ please contact me first. FAQ (c) 2000 by Beta Productions End of FAQ